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Iraqis on Iraq – Diyala and Kirkuk

With international attention shifting from Iraq to Afghanistan, we asked Iraqi journalists working for The New York Times to give a personal view of the areas where they live. Their names are withheld because of the continuing threat to their lives.

DIYALA

NYT

Diyala was one of the most dangerous provinces in Iraq until 2008, with sectarian slaughter between its Sunni and Shiite Arab population and extreme tension along the Arab/Kurdish fault line in the north of the province. It was here that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi set up his headquarters, and here that he was killed in an American airstrike. Now it is calmer, but ethnic and sectarian divides remain.

AL-MURADIYYA, Iraq — Almost a year ago Hanaa Kathem could not appear in public without her hijab. Ms. Kathem, a 19-year-old Iraqi student at Diyala University’s college of science, was afraid of the radical Islamic groups that still remained in many areas around Baquba.

Now, a significant improvement in the security situation, especially in recent months, has had a clear influence on her; she now feels safe, and has stopped wearing the hijab. Yet she still recalls her fear of the situation in Diyala. Even a year ago, she says, it would have been impossible to see a student wearing jeans, makeup or having a ‘modern’ haircut at the college in al-Muradiyya, 10 miles southwest of the provincial capital, Baquba.

“There were explosions, the sound of bullets and news of killings and detonations all over the place,” she said. “The media was reporting scary things. All these made me fear those radical groups, so I committed to wearing the Islamic hijab. It was something that most of the Iraqi girls did in the district, in an attempt to distance ourselves from these groups, either in our neighborhoods or on the way to university.”

“Security tastes like honey. If people taste it, they can get addicted to it.”

Things have changed, and the reason is the feeling of security, which has given space for freedom. This has reduced the power of the radicals, even among strictly observant students at the university.

“I think that things will be better in future because security tastes like honey,” Ms. Kathem said. “If people taste it, they can get addicted to it, and it will be difficult for those armed groups to come back because people will refuse to allow them”.

Diyala Province, which lies northeast of Baghdad toward the Iranian border, is diverse in its sectarian and ethnic composition. It is known as Little Iraq, because all the Iraqi social groups are found there. Arabs — Sunnis and Shiites — make up almost 85 percent of its population, which is about 1.4 million in total. Kurds and Turkmens make up about 15 percent, with small numbers of Christians and Yazidis, most of whom live in the center of the province.

Diyala was known for its loyalty to the previous government, and most of the army leadership was based here. After the American invasion in 2003 it turned from being a safe place, known for its fruit orchards and vegetable produce, to one of the main bases for radical Islamic movements in the country. Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Ansar al-Sunna and others attacked the government security forces, and after February 2006 sectarian violence escalated, and they fought with the Shiites’ Mahdi Army, the military wing of Moktada al-Sadr’s movement.

“The last barrel of oil will come out of Basra or Kirkuk, but the last bullet will come out of Diyala.”

Col. Mahmoud al-Tamimi, an officer in the Iraqi police force in Diyala, now says that the target is to achieve “90 percent or more security in most areas” and to rid Diyala of both radical Sunni and Shiite armed movements within the coming year. He identifies the biggest threats as sectarian violence, tribal revenge and refugees, warning that failure to solve these problems will prolong the insecurity.

Despite the optimism that many try to adopt, others are less hopeful, including many provincial officials, security commanders and residents of Baquba. They measure the security situation depending on day-to-day events. On the other hand, even with see many notable obstacles on the road to stability, more than 5,000 displaced families have now returned to their homes, and it is easy to gain access to places that were once too dangerous to visit.

But exaggerated optimism leads to indifference. Diyala will remain a point of tension because it needs political, social and religious reforms. As Abdul Jabbar al-Jubouri, a political analyst from Baquba, says:

“The last barrel of oil will come out of Basra or Kirkuk, but the last bullet will come out of Diyala.”

KIRKUK

NYT

Kirkuk, sitting atop huge oil reserves, is riven by sectarian and ethnic conflicts because of its position between Arab and Kurdish Iraq, is one of the most difficult problems facing Iraqi politicians. With tensions between the Iraqi Army — run from Baghdad — and the Kurdish-controlled police and intelligence services, what will happen when the Americans leave?

Kirkuk today still has not resolved the issues of how to make its security forces work together, the situation for the sizable Kurdish presence in the area and the degree of Kurdish control of the city.

The Turkmens and the Arabs have stood up and are now asking for international protection or territorial interference to protect them after the American withdrawal. This has coincided with deadly explosions that Kirkuk witnessed this year, including killings, assassinations and arrests that had political fingerprints.

The oil law that Kurdistan is demanding is causing disagreements and conflict. Arab, Turkmens and even Kurdish politicians now surmise that the American withdrawal might contribute to internal fighting among the peoples of Kirkuk, especially after the failure of political solutions and the refusal of the different parties to reach common points of agreement.

Today the presence of the American forces has turned politics in Kirkuk into a matter of reconciling feuding parties and keeping the army and police forces apart to avoid clashes. This only postpones real solutions.

Mojabal Mahmoud al-Mafriji, 55, a farmer and agriculture engineer, said that the Arabs in Kirkuk made all the concessions because they had no choice other than to work together politically to find a solution to the problem of Kirkuk.

“We gave everything but did not get anything in return, as Arabs,” he said. “Our homes are exposed and our weapons were taken from us. We did not get any kind of administrative division or a guarantee of the ‘Iraqness’ of Kirkuk. This year was a difficult year. The Kurds are strong and more extreme towards the people of Kirkuk.”

However, Matin Jenkiz Karkukalli, 49, a Turkmen teacher, said that his people had sacrificed the most in Kirkuk.

“Our town has a rich Turkman heritage, and we have not been given our rights,” Mr. Karkukalli said. “This year we have also not seen any changes that benefit the Turkmen. The Americans are biased toward the Kurds. We did not see the Iraqi Army enter the city. The elections will be biased to one side only, and the killings, kidnappings and assassination are still something the Turkmens face and are frightened by. We did not see any progress.”

Nozad Hama Ghareeb, a Kurdish businessman, said that the issue of Kirkuk was one of the most complicated matters that the Constitution, politicians and Americans had failed to solve.

“We fear clashes after the American withdrawal,” he said. “The Americans should perform their proper function because the chaos will destroy everyone. We, the Kurds, are afraid of the Iraqi Army’s movements. Many of us have been killed, the politicians have disappointed us, and we are not ready for a new war because the world is progressing toward investment and economy, not chaos and destruction.”

If you follow the situation in Kirkuk you can see that it is going in a complicated direction where conflict is escalating. If the American withdrawal takes place, the fragile security situation and political conflict will pave the way for radical groups who want to fulfill their agendas and create chaos.

Gen. Abdul Ameer Zeidi, a local Iraqi Army commander, insisted that political dialogue was taking place and asserted that Kirkuk had witnessed “good progress” in the security field, thanks to the security forces and people of Kirkuk working together. “All stand against terror and are working to fight it,” he said.

Torhan Yousef, the commander of police in Kirkuk, also said that the performance of the security forces had improved throughout 2009 but conceded that armed factions were seeking to destabilize the situation. “The purpose of these operations is to shake the security situation and to undermine people’s trust in the security forces. We have plans for the future to stop these operations,” he said.

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At War is a reported blog from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other conflicts in the post-9/11 era. The New York Times's award-winning team provides insight — and answers questions — about combatants on the faultlines, and civilians caught in the middle.

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